If you're one of the millions (no, I don't think that's an exaggeration) of MySQL users out there, and you've struggled with the date and time types that they offer for their columns, then you might need to check out this new article from DevShed.

In Date Arithmetic With MySQL, the author shows you how to use the built in MySQL date/time columns as well as some of the date/time functions that will allow you to quickly and easily add days, months, years, etc to your times.

Of course, data types, by themselves are only one piece of the puzzle; in order to do something with them, you need functions. And MySQL scores high points there as well, providing over 40 built-in functions to process and manipulate date and time values. The MySQL date and time API includes functions to extract different components of a timestamp, to format a timestamp in a variety of different ways, to obtain the current date and time, to convert between different date and time formats, and much, much more.